Forgery League

Blog: entries tagged with "script+frenzy"

It’s almost time for another Script Frenzy, the worldwide writing challenge that goes on for the entire month of April. Last year, I “won” by hammering out over a hundred pages’ worth of first drafts for Alba Salix, a huge step in bringing the series to fruition.

Yes, Alba is now in production. We have a great cast, drawn from the friends and acquaintances I’ve made in community theatre over the past few years, and a couple of weeks ago they reunited to hear our pilot episode and read through the next two scripts. I’m incredibly grateful to them all for their time, versatility and enthusiasm for the project! We may even be able to record the rest of the episodes in a proper studio, rather than a dining room lined with mattresses and blankets.

Post-production on the pilot was lengthy but fun, and involved a good deal of me smashing and banging things in the basement in front of a microphone. I didn’t have a good gauge of how many words the episode should be, but I’m aiming for an even 28 minutes, which it turns out means about 5,200 words. We ran well over that mark, which meant having to trim pretty much everything that wasn’t essential or at least amusing, a really useful exercise in tightening up a script.

I can still hear holes, though: missed opportunities for jokes, dialogue that’s too on-the-nose, scenes that lack focus. Being able to recognize those is a big help in punching up the newer scripts. My rough estimate is that Episodes 2 and 3 are nearly 50% funnier as a result. And having listened to the piece literally dozens of times as I assembled the dialogue, music and effects, I can now hear all the main characters’ voices as I write further episodes.

All of which brings me back to Script Frenzy. I’ll be working on some new Alba stories this coming month, and possibly some sketch comedy if I feel like a change. There’s even a vague and nebulous show concept codenamed “Frequencies” or “the 1980s show” that’s been rolling around in my head for a long time. I don’t know where it’s going exactly, but it’s dawning on me that the best template for it is something like The Great Eastern, one of my favourite CBC shows, which aired in the late ’90s and purported to be from Newfoundland’s own public broadcaster, the BCN.

Along the way I’m hoping to get some blogging done too. This site has been pretty quiet for the past few years, but as I get time I’ll share some of my experiences and wild-eyed theories around the writing process. And I’m hoping to get to more Toronto-region Frenzy events too.

Time to tidy the house and get ready to buckle down. April is going to be fun.